City water is more conventional, but it is also expensive.

Conventional loan Lessons learned?

I’m in Kentucky and properties are in Tennessee.  5 single family rentals currently on 30-year fixed conventional loans.  

Also lenders often have a due-on-sale clause with VA loans that if you transfer or assign the property the entire mortgage becomes due, so that puts you at risk of needing to scramble to get new funding to keep the deal.So even though it technically "could be done" it would be much lower risk if you can get in either as a first-time home buyer at 3%, use FHA at 3.5%, or a conventional primary residence loan at 5% down, and then assign it to your investment LLC a year later as you move out. 

If good, then go for conventional loans.   

For example, conventional wisdom says a Realtor should expect their first commission check 6 months after getting licensed. 

The private lender will have no equity in the deal but only make a return on their investment.I am not going to be living in this property as my primary residence so my question is because you can't use "gift money" to purchase an investment property through a conventional loan, what are my options to work around this and be able to use the private money to acquire the property?

Lenders base fixed rate conventional (15 and 30 year) mortgages off the 10-year treasury.

Generally speaking there are 2 main types of loans for investors: “Conventional” and “Portfolio”Conventional - I'll define these as loans that come from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (if you recognize those names).

Up to 4 units is considered fine for conventional financing.